“We’ve issued an order in this connection,” a BB senior official told the BBN in Dhaka on Sunday evening.

The newly appointed spokesperson, however, said he is expected to take new responsibility from Monday.

The new appointment came against the backdrop of a report recently published in a local daily regarding the probe committee report on impurity and adulteration of gold in the BB vault.

On the other hand, the central bank of Bangladesh had recorded some of the gold in its vault as low-grade ones although an investigation by the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) found that they were of superior quality.

The probe body also revealed that the gold samples tested weigh more than that in the BB record books, raising questions about the central bank’s seriousness in its vault management.

The investigation between late 2016 and early 2017 found that the government could lose BDT 19 million for the discrepancy in weight and karat, an indicator of the purity of gold.

Based on a random sampling, the team checked 963.404kg of gold bars ornaments and gold cut pieces. It found they actually weighed 963.854kg, meaning there was a discrepancy of 0.45kg.

In another case, examining 3.3kg of gold, it found there were 46 per cent gold in them instead of 80 per cent recorded by the central bank.

The government stands to lose over BDT 10 million as a result of this, according to the investigation report by the CIID, which operates under the National Board of Revenue.

The BB, however, defended itself, saying it mistakenly wrote 80 per cent and that it was a “clerical” error.

About the discrepancy, BB officials said the measurement may vary slightly from machine to machine. “We measure the purity of gold in traditional way by a designated goldsmith, and not by machine.”

BBN/SSR/AD

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